IT'S A SIMS WORLD AFTER ALL
by stephomi
Summary: There's something strange going on in London. People are doing things they don't want to do, acting illogically...Sherlock wants to know what's going on.


Fandom: Sherlock/Sims 3  
Title: Dollhouse. Or IT'S A SIMS WORLD AFTER ALL.  
Characters: John, Sherlock, Anderson, Lestrade, Mycroft  
Summary: There's something strange going on in London...  
Warnings: Insanity.

For the prompt:

Sherlock has noticed something a little odd about his acquaintances and co-workers. Even his own actions are a little off. Irritating people, charming them, when he barely even knows what that entails, he finds himself compelled to do these actions.

John himself has been going to bed at odd hours, going to work a whole hour before he needs to.

When Mrs Hudson cooks she either cooks for herself or for an army.

Sherlock can not figure out the horrible truth:

They're all Sims! Being played!

Note: The section with Anderson is a bit of an inside joke in Sims 3...if you haven't played it yet, basically it's something you make sims do to insult other sims.

* * *

Dollhouse

or

IT'S A SIMS WORLD AFTER ALL.

If Sherlock could only choose one thing for no one to ever find out about (except for Mycroft because, despite his genius level mind, Sherlock had never quite figured out how to hide anything for his frustrating older brother) it would be a certain phase he went through for three months after he turned fifteen. Sherlock had always taken pride in his innate ability to manipulate those around him (except for, once again, Mycroft, which was to be expected – he was a _Holmes_ after all) into doing what he desired. While he has taken joy from unexpected bursts of sense from his acquaintances, for the most part humans are boringly predictable. And it was from this boredom induced by the world's population that Sherlock's strangely long-lived hobby stemmed.

When Sherlock turned fifteen, the Holmes family had made a spontaneous move to live with Grandma Holmes. Well, perhaps spontaneous was not entirely truthful. The abrupt relocation may have had something to do with the unanimous vote from his school to expel Sherlock. His expulsion was utterly ridiculous if you asked him. It wasn't his fault the teachers were all idiots, if anything his contributions had been the most useful things his classmates would hear in those lessons. So what if he used chemicals without permission? So what if he used his fellow students as test subjects? It was all for the sake of _science_. They should have been able to appreciate that; the fact that they couldn't meant they were idiots.

If there was one thing Sherlock hated more than idiots, it was staying with Grandma Holmes. His mother had always been very indulgent when it came to his experiments. She tended to let him get away with almost anything as long it did not involve killing anyone or blowing up anything larger than a toaster. She clearly understood the importance of what Sherlock was doing proving, once again, that she was not a fool like the rest of the world. Grandma Holmes, on the other hand, had always been far less tolerant of his 'silly antics', as she liked to say. Whenever she caught him partaking in anything even mildly interesting she would put a stop to it at once. Never let it be said that Grandma Holmes was not diligent. His grandmother may have been an idiot, but she was a _cunning_ idiot.

With a vigilant Grandma Holmes watching his every move all day everyday, Sherlock had little else to do than to explore her strangely large townhouse. It was during these explorations that he discovered what would quickly become an obsession. After two weeks and two days of living in his new prison, he had thoroughly investigated the first two floors and had started in on the third. About midway through his third week, he discovered a mainly disused guest bedroom. Normally, such a room would not interest him but he was incredibly bored, and boredom can do the strangest things to people. So, after scouring the entire room and finding nothing of interest, he decided to leave the room be and, letting out a sigh of frustration, slowly left the room, running his hand across the wall as he walked. His time in the bedroom would have ended after that if not for the inconsistency in texture of the wall. After his hand ran over an odd protrusion atypical of the rest of the wall, he stopped and inspected the area. He quickly realised that the protrusion continued upwards most of the way and down to the floor and formed a rectangular shape. He suspected it was a door. He pulled out a penknife and cut into the wallpaper. He then proceeded to rip a large section of it off the wall, or rather, the door that lay beneath.

The door was white but the paint was cracked in several places. Not well cared for, then. There was also simply a hole where the doorknob should have been suggesting that whoever had decided to have the door wallpapered over did not want anyone getting in. It was unsurprising then when, after digging his penknife into the door until it was firmly in place and attempting to open it, he discovered it was locked. Fortunately, by this point in his life he was a deft hand at lock picking. The next time he attempted, the door opened easily, albeit with a cringe worthy creak.

Sherlock used his eternally present scarf to cover his mouth before stepping inside the walk-in cupboard the door had revealed. When he turned on the light he applauded his deduction that the place would be covered in dust because he had been right. Much like the guest room, this place was clearly not being used. Quickly scanning the shelves, he looked for anything of interest. There was not much, just some boxes full of memorabilia and – and something a little more unexpected. Bending down, he observed the object up close. It was a large, wooden dollhouse – from the looks of it, it was handmaid.

It was at this moment that the consequences of inflicting boredom on Sherlock Holmes again became apparent. Under normal circumstances he would have simply inspected the dollhouse some more before leaving alone for good. As it was, he was almost going insane with northing to do. After expending quite some effort pulling the large object out from the confines of the shelves, he sat himself down in front of it and opened the front of the house. As he expected, each room was furnished with tiny objects. In fact, Sherlock realised after getting a closer look, the dollhouse was actually a miniature replica of Grandma Holmes' not so humble abode. Fascinating. His inspection would have continued if he had not heard his mother's voice calling him for dinner.

Sherlock realised on the next day that while he now had a dollhouse to occupy his time, he did not have any dolls as such to inhabit the house. To rectify this matter he lifted the wallet of one of Grandma Holmes' many distinguished associates (he felt no guilt over this, the man was an idiot and if wanted to keep his money then he should have taken better care of it) and left the house in search of any local shops. After two frustrating hours of searching, he eventually returned to the house with five dolls – each of which looked eerily similar to the person they represented.

He spent most of his days after that sat in the hidden cupboard, manipulating the doll versions of his family members to his heart's content. This mostly consisted of locking Grandma Holmes in various unpleasant locations in the house, having Mycroft respect him and leave him alone like he should, having his mother dote on him and making himself act like the master of the universe he truly was. It was a tremendous amount of fun and left him feeling strangely satisfied. In the world of the dollhouse, things were as they should be.

Sherlock's hobby lasted for two months longer after it began. It would have continued if not for Mycroft catching his brother in the act.

"Oh Sherlock," said, well, Sherlock in a ridiculous high pitched voice in an attempt to mimic his brother, "you are indeed much more competent and smarter than I. I bow down to your superior logic and promise never to bother you ever again."

"What on _earth_ are you doing, Sherlock?" came the voice of the real Mycroft from behind him.

In his surprise, Sherlock actually dropped the two dolls in his hands and fell during his first attempt to stand up. Once he had actually succeeded he turned around and attempted to conceal his secret dollhouse from his brother.

"I think the real question here, Mycroft, is why do you exist?"

Mycroft tilted his head, the corner of his lips quirking up into an amused smile at what he spotted behind his little brother.

"Is that a _dollhouse_, Sherlock? My, my, of all the things I had suspected you might be doing in here this was certainly not one of them."

"Whatever you think it is, it's not that." Sherlock frowned. "How did you know I was up here? How long have you known?"

"Oh Sherlock, I've known since the day you discovered this place. Ripping down half the wallpaper? Not very subtle, little brother."

He scoffed, "It was hardly half the wallpaper."

"So, dolls, Sherlock? Really?"

"It's an experiment!"

"Hmm? Really? I suppose I must accept this explanation, after all I _have_ conceded to bow down to you _superior logic_, it seems." Mycroft raised an infuriatingly smug eyebrow as he spoke.

Sherlock did not respond, choosing instead to storm past his brother. Mycroft turned as he went past and continued to watch as he slammed the door of the guest room shut behind him as he left. Mycroft's smile disappeared as a small wave of sadness rushed over him. Sherlock would not be coming back to this room, this he knew.

* * *

Years later, Sherlock felt a strange sense of familiarity come over him as he observed the behaviour of the people around him. There was something very odd going on.

At first it was small things that Sherlock attributed to people's idiocy and did not even consider worth thinking about until it all started building up. One example of this was the incident with Anderson. Lestrade had once again realised that he needed Sherlock's help so he had invited him and John to the latest crime scene he was at. A dead woman was lying in the middle of the kitchen, a pool of blood around her head. The forensics team was all over it which, of course, meant that Anderson was nearby.

"Well if it isn't the psychopath," came an irritating voice from behind him.

Sherlock rolled his eyes and sighed exasperatedly. "How many times do I have to tell you that I'm a high functioning sociopath, _not_ a psychopath before it penetrates your thick skull, Anderson?"

Their banter continued as normal until Anderson came out with something particularly moronic, even for him.

"Your mum is a llama!"

There was silence as everyone paused, trying to process the words that had just come out of Anderson's mouth. Even Sherlock had an utterly confused expression twisting onto his face.

"…What?" Sherlock began. "Has your IQ somehow managed to drop to an even more abysmal figure than before, Anderson? What exactly led you to believe that half of my genetic information could have come from a llama, of all things?"

Apparently, even he could not comprehend why he had said it because Anderson's reply sounded just as puzzled as everyone else felt.

"…I – I don't know. I just felt compelled to say it."

"You foolish man."

After that Anderson retreated into himself and didn't say anything else. Alone, the incident meant nothing but what followed led Sherlock to believe that it was entirely relevant.

* * *

For instance, John's normal routine (well, a routine as normal as it could be in the company of Sherlock) began to alter in inexplicable ways. The man began going to sleep at extremely odd hours for no apparent reason. Then he started sleeping for sporadic lengths of time. Sherlock remembered one time when his companion retired to his bedroom at 2:30am and then woke up at 5:00am in order to read a book entitled 'Gardening Vol. 1: The Watercan Chronicles'. Sherlock could not figure out John's reasoning behind this. They lived in a flat that did not have a garden and, as far as he was aware, the only plants John came into contact with on a regular basis were the potted ones at the surgery he was working at. Moreover, where was the logic in getting less sleep than he normally preferred in order to read a pointless book? Sherlock simply could not understand this unusual behaviour.

It did not end there, either. Sherlock had long since calculated the exact amount of time John needed to get to work early with time to make a cup of tea before settling down – he would need to leave at 7:00am. John had been following Sherlock's time plan for five weeks when he suddenly started leaving at 6:00am instead. Once again, this made absolutely no sense to him and, when asked, John could not explain why he was doing it either.

The strangeness of John's behaviour peaked when he arrived home from work a whole two hours later than he should have done which was incredibly irritating since Mrs Hudson had once again hidden his skull and he needed John there to talk at. When he did finally get in, he looked stressed and completely exhausted (which wasn't surprising considering he went to bed at 5:00am). Naturally, Sherlock found himself interrogating the man.

"Where have you been all day? I texted you. I needed you here _hours_ ago."

He expected indignation and exasperation at the implication that John should be at his beck and call but, worryingly, it never came. Instead his companion turned to him with a wild look in his eyes.

"I'm sorry Sherlock but I just couldn't stop talking to this woman I've never even met before after I left work. I just kept talking and talking and talking. And then I told the same joke about twenty times and we must have hugged about fifty times in the space of an hour _I don't understand_. And also please stop talking to me."

"What? Why?"

"I've needed the loo for the past _two hours_ but I haven't been able to go first because of the woman and now because we're talking, _stop talking_. Oh God I think I might cry if this continues."

And then he rushed off in the direction of the bathroom, leaving a very confused genius behind.

* * *

It was after John's odd behaviour became outrageous that Sherlock began observing all the other people he knew. There was one memorable occasion on which Mrs Hudson knocked on their door with a surprise.

When the knock came, Sherlock didn't even look up from his phone. John sighed and got up.

"I suppose I'll have to get it then."

He opened the door to Mrs Hudson who was standing at the top of the stairs looking very sheepish.

"Oh, Mrs Hudson. Is there a problem?"

"Oh no, no, dears. I was just wondering if you and Sherlock wanted to join me for supper. It seems that I've made too much tonight."

John, pleasantly surprised, turned to ask Sherlock but the man was already on his feet and standing eagerly behind him.

"Well, let's go then!"

When they got to her kitchen, John was more than a little surprised.

"What – I think that's more than just too much, Mrs Hudson. God, there's enough here to feed an _army_, and I would know!"

Everyone ate well that night. And it wasn't the last night it happened either. Sherlock and John came to expect a knock on their door every evening followed by a ridiculously large meal. It was probably for the best that Sherlock's line of work required an equally ridiculous amount of running.

* * *

Then the plague of odd behaviour infected one of the most sane men Sherlock had ever known. They were in the bedroom of a murdered teenage boy (who, by the way, was lying on his bed, one thumb missing) when Sherlock spotted Lestrade sitting at the boy's desk. Lestrade never sat down at a crime scene. _Never._ Sherlock was intrigued so he walked up behind the man.

The man who was playing some sort of snowboarding video game on the dead boy's laptop.

How very uncharacteristic of him.

John's reaction was much less silent than his own. "Wha – what are you _doing_? That's hardly appropriate at a crime scene! I mean, I would expect it from Sherlock but…"

Lestrade did not look up from his game but the man's voice was choked as he spoke, revealing his distressed state.

"I don't know why I'm doing this. I couldn't help myself and I know I should stop but this is so _fun_."

It was as Sherlock watched the tears roll down Lestrade's cheeks as he unwillingly derived so much fun from a simple game that it was almost criminal that he was struck by a realisation. Everyone he knew was acting completely unlike themselves. None of them could understand why. None of them were enjoying it. It was almost like they were being _controlled_…Sherlock suddenly thought back to a time when he was fifteen and forcing a doll version of Mycroft to submit to his will. It was exactly like that except this time they were the dolls. Everyone he knew had been forced to do things against their will, but not him, which meant…

Sherlock looked up, half expecting to see the mocking smiles of some cruel gods. Instead, he saw a large, green diamond twirling above his head.

He was next.


End file.
